DURHAM, NC, Aug 22, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- MetaMetrics®, developer of The Lexile® Framework for Reading, has partnered with ReadWorks® (www.readworks.org) to provide Lexile® measures for hundreds of passages. The passages are part of ReadWorks' curriculum, aimed at solving the reading comprehension crisis and eliminating the achievement gap in the US.

ReadWorks provides K-6 teachers and educational leaders with a proven, research-based program that improves teacher effectiveness and raises student achievement in reading comprehension. Tens of thousands of educators in all 50 states have joined the ReadWorks community. All ReadWorks lessons are aligned to the Common Core State Standards.

follows reading comprehension models while slowly releasing responsibility to the student through practice and independent work

Each lesson introduces vocabulary words for teachers and language for directly introducing the new vocabulary to students

Lessons incorporating background knowledge development

"The Common Core State Standards have brought text complexity measurement to the forefront of the educational community," said MetaMetrics President and co-founder Malbert Smith III, Ph.D. "We applaud ReadWorks for recognizing the value that Lexile measures provide in evaluating text complexity and helping provide targeted resources to achieve college and career-readiness."

"We believe the addition of Lexile measures to our ReadWorks curriculum is a necessary step to help students realize the promise of college and career ready standards," said ReadWorks Executive Director David Ciulla. "We are thrilled that ReadWorks will offer Lexile measures for its curriculum to help differentiate instruction and close the achievement gap."

The Lexile Framework is a unique tool for accurately matching readers with text. Recognized as the most widely used reading metric, the Lexile Framework is based on more than 20 years of research funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Their distinct approach to measuring readers and texts has resulted in Lexile adoptions by departments of education in nearly half the states and school districts in all 50 U.S. states, and a global reach that continues to expand.

About ReadWorksReadWorks, a nonprofit organization enables teachers to solve the reading comprehension crisis and eliminate the achievement gap in the United States by improving teacher effectiveness through research-based instructional practices and curriculum, and through open-access online technology. ReadWorks is delivered directly to teachers online, at no cost to educators and their schools. By engaging teachers and principals directly, ReadWorks circumnavigates systemic barriers to scalable, sustainable improvement in teacher effectiveness and student achievement.